Way Station
I like being a way station. Although the central cast remains relatively unchanged over long periods, people move in and out of my homes pretty regularly. Couchsurfers for a day or a week, friends of friends stopping in to relax and move on, new long-term housemates I have sometimes met the day I moved them in, friends stuck in the land of in-between, certain people to whom I have committed to always be their home when needed. I love the combination of stability and fluidity. Many of my friends are wanderers by nature, and I am their home base, the solid spot that gives them greater freedom. It's important to me not to require commitment in return, with a few very specific and long-term and negotiated exceptions. If I choose this life for that kind of quid pro quo reason, I am weighing them down with nonconsensual implicit obligations. That gets icky and codependent really quickly.
One of the things I've learned to check in myself is my motivation for action. The closer I stay to "living this way because it is an expression of my belief structure, regardless of outcome" and the further from "living this way because of what I expect to get in return", the happier and healthier I am. The more active, and less reactive. That isn't to say that my decisions haven't led to huge rewards in my life. I am living this way because I think it works, after all. But that "works" is measured on a very large scale "create the world I wish to live in" way, not in individual transactions counting positive or negative for their immediate reward.
I feel similarly about sexuality and commitment. Although there are again a central core of characters (only slightly overlapping with the "household"), "hold on loosely" rings very true for me. My agreement with my partners, my one hard and fast rule, is that we tell each other about any sexual activity that has bearing on safer sex decisions before the next time we have sex with each other. In practice, my primary and other partners are my best friends; they hear more details than anyone else, I care about their feelings, and we talk about everything pretty extensively. Not because it's a rule, though, but because that's what a healthy relationship looks like for us.
As for the other partners who pass through my life more temporarily, for an encounter or two, or a year or two, Way Station rings very true for some. I don't want to slow their journey, or artificially tie it to me, I want to support it. Send them on better provisioned; relaxed and confident and knowing more about the path ahead. I want encounters with me to be a benevolent impact on someone's life, not a restrictive or damaging one. I honor the past lovers in my life who were way stations for me, places of healing and growth and emotional resupply, and I've told them so whenever I could.
Part of the reason hippie/burner culture feels so right to me is the intersection of community spirit and "do your own thing". It's the model for how I live intimately, and it's often messy and chaotic, and we never agree on who's going to do the dishes, but I love it so, so much.
One of the things I've learned to check in myself is my motivation for action. The closer I stay to "living this way because it is an expression of my belief structure, regardless of outcome" and the further from "living this way because of what I expect to get in return", the happier and healthier I am. The more active, and less reactive. That isn't to say that my decisions haven't led to huge rewards in my life. I am living this way because I think it works, after all. But that "works" is measured on a very large scale "create the world I wish to live in" way, not in individual transactions counting positive or negative for their immediate reward.
I feel similarly about sexuality and commitment. Although there are again a central core of characters (only slightly overlapping with the "household"), "hold on loosely" rings very true for me. My agreement with my partners, my one hard and fast rule, is that we tell each other about any sexual activity that has bearing on safer sex decisions before the next time we have sex with each other. In practice, my primary and other partners are my best friends; they hear more details than anyone else, I care about their feelings, and we talk about everything pretty extensively. Not because it's a rule, though, but because that's what a healthy relationship looks like for us.
As for the other partners who pass through my life more temporarily, for an encounter or two, or a year or two, Way Station rings very true for some. I don't want to slow their journey, or artificially tie it to me, I want to support it. Send them on better provisioned; relaxed and confident and knowing more about the path ahead. I want encounters with me to be a benevolent impact on someone's life, not a restrictive or damaging one. I honor the past lovers in my life who were way stations for me, places of healing and growth and emotional resupply, and I've told them so whenever I could.
Part of the reason hippie/burner culture feels so right to me is the intersection of community spirit and "do your own thing". It's the model for how I live intimately, and it's often messy and chaotic, and we never agree on who's going to do the dishes, but I love it so, so much.